Artists

Bhawani Das trained in Mughal miniature painting. In Calcutta he made natural-history studies for Bengal's chief justice, Elijah Impey, and his wife Mary.

This group brings together funerary portraits by different unidentified painters in Roman Egypt.

This conventional name identifies an Athenian workshop of the Geometric period. Large painted vessels used as grave markers are attributed to it.

Exekias worked in Athens as both a potter and a vase painter, sometimes signing in both roles. His early pottery is associated with the painters known as Group E.

This Athenian painter signed two vessels ho Lydos, meaning the Lydian. The name may indicate that he or his family came from Lydia.

The painter's personal name is unknown. The scholar John Beazley named him after a vase in Berlin. This Athenian red-figure artist often placed a single figure or pair on large vessels.

The museum attributes this painting to Rogier van der Weyden's workshop; its individual painter is unidentified.

Fra Angelico is first documented as a painter in 1417. Around that time he became a novice at the Dominican friary of San Domenico in Fiesole.

Berlinghiero is documented in Lucca in 1228. His signed Crucifix provides a basis for identifying other paintings by him. He trained three sons, and works by Bonaventura and Marco survive.

The artist's conventional name comes from the convent of Heiligenkreuz in Austria, where panels associated with him were found. His origins and training remain uncertain.

Mount apprenticed to his older brother, a New York sign painter, and drew at the National Academy of Design.

Modigliani was born to Jewish parents in Livorno and moved to Paris in 1906. He portrayed friends and artists from the city's international community.

Charles Sheeler studied painting in Philadelphia, including with William Merritt Chase. Photography became a source of income around 1910.

Mi Youren was the eldest son of the painter and critic Mi Fu. Father and son depicted misty mountains through accumulations of wet ink dots.

The Buddhist monk Juran served the Southern Tang court in Nanjing and studied with Dong Yuan. Their landscapes evoke the gentle banks, rivers and mists of southern China.

Ma Lin was a Southern Song court painter. He collaborated with Emperor Lizong, making a fan painting in response to the ruler's transcription of a poem by Wang Wei.

Muqi Fachang was a thirteenth-century Chan monk and painter. His ink paintings of birds became particularly valued in Japan, where artists collected and studied them.

Ren Renfa's horse paintings appealed to Chinese scholars and Mongol court patrons. He worked during the Yuan period's renewed interest in older models.

Li Song worked at the Southern Song court and was associated with Hangzhou. He specialised in detailed images of children, peddlers and their merchandise.

Li Anzhong was a twelfth-century court painter. He lived through the transfer of the capital from Kaifeng to Hangzhou after the fall of the Northern Song.

In Nine Songs, Zhang Wo supplied the painting and Chu Huan the calligraphy. They returned to ancient ritual poems of the Chu kingdom, repeatedly interpreted by Chinese scholars.

Chen Hongshou gave his figures a deliberately archaic appearance, using even, controlled outlines and strong mineral colours.

Du Jin trained as a scholar but became a professional painter after failing the civil-service examination.

Zhou Chen worked in Suzhou, where commercial prosperity coexisted with homelessness, illness and unemployment. Beggars and Street Characters depicts people from its markets and streets.

Shen Zhou founded the Wu school, a community of scholars and officials around Suzhou. He practised painting, calligraphy and poetry, often combining them in one work.

Yun Shouping came from Piling, now Changzhou, a centre of flower, plant and insect painting. He joined resistance to the Manchu conquest and was briefly imprisoned.

Aniko, known in Chinese sources as Anige, led a group of Nepali artists to central Tibet in 1261. The following year, the lama Phakpa brought him to the court in Beijing.

Soami lived in Kyoto and served as curator of the Ashikaga shoguns' collection. He closely studied Chinese Song and Yuan paintings.

Sotatsu headed Kyoto's Tawaraya shop, which sold fans and decorated papers. He collaborated with the calligrapher Hon'ami Koetsu, including on poetry cards.

Buson grew up near Osaka, went to Edo to study poetry and travelled through northeastern Japan following Matsuo Basho's routes. He later taught poetry in Kyoto and painted professionally.

Goshun was born into a family of government-mint officials and studied painting with Yosa Buson. He spent several years as a Buddhist monk in Ikeda.

Rosetsu was the son of a low-ranking samurai. He was adopted by a Kyoto family and trained with Maruyama Okyo.

Kyosai first studied with Utagawa Kuniyoshi and later with masters of classical painting. He made paintings and print designs and collected art.

Katsushika Oi was Hokusai's third daughter and studied with him. She collaborated with her father at a time when professional women painters were unusual in Japan.

Yi Taegyun was a Korean court painter active in the later nineteenth century. He painted screens of books and objects associated with a scholar's study.

Kim Si came from an aristocratic family and was the son of the official Kim Anro. After his father's fall from power, he withdrew from public life and pursued painting in seclusion.